On Her Majesty's Secret
Service (1969) is the sixth spy film in the James Bond series, based
on the 1963 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. Following the
decision of Sean Connery to retire from the role after You Only Live
Twice, Eon Productions selected an unknown actor and model,
Australian actor George Lazenby, to play the part of James Bond.
During the making of the film, Lazenby decided that he would play the
role of Bond only once.
In
the film, Bond faces Blofeld (Telly Savalas), who is planning to
sterilise the world's food supply through a group of brainwashed
"angels of death" unless his demands for an international
amnesty, his title of the Count De Bleuchamp to be recognised and to
be allowed to retire into private life are all met. Along the way,
Bond meets, falls in love with, and eventually marries Contessa
Teresa (Tracy) di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg).
This is the only Bond film
to be directed by Peter R. Hunt, who had served as a film editor and
second unit director on previous films in the series. Hunt, along
with producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, decided to
produce a more realistic film that would follow the novel closely. It
was shot in Switzerland, England and Portugal from October 1968 to
May 1969. Although its cinema release was not as lucrative as its
predecessor You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service was
still one of the top performing films of the year. Critical reviews
upon release were mixed, but the film's reputation has improved over
time and has become a fan favorite, though reviews of Lazenby's
performance continue to vary. Lazenby hasn't the intensity of Connery
but he has fun with his quips and even lampoons the Bond image in a
playful pre-credits sequence, and Rigg, fresh from playing sexy Emma
Peel in The Avengers, matches 007 in every way. Rigg's appearance in
a Bond film followed her predecessor in The Avengers, Honor Blackman
in Goldfinger. In addition, future New Avenger Joanna Lumley also has
a small role in OHMSS as one of Blofeld's brainwashed "angels of
death." Brigitte Bardot was considered for the role of Tracy
before Rigg, but after she signed to appear in Shalako opposite Sean
Connery the deal fell through.
In
1967, after five James Bond films, Sean Connery retired from the
role of James Bond and during the filming of You Only Live Twice was
not on speaking terms with Albert Broccoli. The confirmed front
runners for the new 007 were Englishman John Richardson, Dutchman
Hans De Vries, American Robert Campbell, Englishman Anthony Rogers
and Australian George Lazenby. Pictured at right is a composite image
of the five top candidates doing their best "James Bond
pose" that was originally published in the October 11th, 1968,
issue of LIFE magazine.
Broccoli and Hunt
eventually chose Lazenby after seeing him in a Fry's Chocolate Cream
advertisement. Lazenby dressed the part by sporting several sartorial
Bond elements such as a Rolex Submariner wristwatch and a Savile Row
suit (ordered, but uncollected, by Connery), and going to Connery's
barber at the Dorchester Hotel. Broccoli noticed Lazenby as a
Bond-type man based on his physique and character elements, and
offered him an audition. The position was consolidated when Lazenby
accidentally punched a professional wrestler, who was acting as stunt
coordinator, in the face, impressing Broccoli with his ability to
display aggression.
Although
Lazenby had been offered a contract for seven movies, his agent,
Ronan O'Rahilly, convinced him that the secret agent would be archaic
in the liberated 1970s, and as a result he left the series after the
release of On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969. Lazenby announced
that he no longer wished to play the role of James Bond due to his
conflict with the film's producers, about whom he said, "They
made me feel like I was mindless. They disregarded everything I
suggested simply because I hadn't been in the film business like them
for about a thousand years." His co-star Diana Rigg was among
many who commented on this decision: "The role made Sean Connery
a millionaire. I truly don't know what's happening in George's mind
so I can only speak of my reaction. I think it's a pretty foolish
move. I think if he can bear to do an apprenticeship, which everybody
in this business has to do, then he should do it quietly and with
humility. Everybody has to do it. There are few instant successes in
the film business. And the instant successes one usually associates
with somebody who is willing to learn anyway." Lazenby grew a
beard and long hair. "Bond is a brute," he announced.
"I've already put him behind me. I will never play him
again." Later Lazenby began to study drama at Durham
University's College of the Venerable Bede but would play Bond
several times over the years in numerous parodies and unofficial 007
roles, most notably the 1983 television movie The Return of the Man
from U.N.C.L.E. and an episode of The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents,
entitled "Diamonds Aren't Forever". In 2012 Lazenby made a
guest appearance on the Canadian sketch comedy series This Hour Has
22 Minutes, spoofing the 007 series in a skit called Help, I've
Skyfallen and I Can't Get Up. Although Eon Productions attempted on
several occasions to cast Americans as Bond (most notably signing
John Gavin for Diamonds Are Forever before the services of Sean
Connery were obtained, again) Lazenby remains the only actor from
outside the British Isles to portray Bond in a Bond feature film.
The novel On Her Majesty's
Secret Service was the first published after the film series started
and contains "a gentle dig at the cinematic Bond's gadgets, as
well as having Bond mention that he comes from Scotland."
Broccoli and Saltzman had originally intended to make On Her
Majesty's Secret Service after Goldfinger and Richard Maibaum worked
on a script at that time. However, Thunderball was filmed instead
after the ongoing rights dispute over the novel were settled between
Fleming and Kevin McClory. On Her Majesty's Secret Service was due to
follow that, but problems with a warm Swiss winter and inadequate
snow cover led to Saltzman and Broccoli postponing the film again,
favouring production of You Only Live Twice.
Between the resignation of
Sean Connery at the beginning of filming You Only Live Twice and its
release, Saltzman had planned to adapt The Man with the Golden Gun in
Cambodia and use Roger Moore as the next Bond, but political
instability meant the location was ruled out and Moore signed up for
another series of The Saint. After You Only Live Twice was released
in 1967, the producers once again picked up with On Her Majesty's
Secret Service.
Peter Hunt, who had worked
on the five preceding films had impressed Broccoli and Saltzman
enough to earn his directorial debut as they believed his quick
cutting had set the style for the series; it was also the result of a
long-standing promise from Broccoli and Saltzman for a directorial
position. Hunt also asked for the position during the production of
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and he brought along with him many crew
members, including cinematographer Michael Reed. Hunt was focused on
putting his mark, "I wanted it to be different than any other
Bond film would be. It was my film, not anyone else's." On Her
Majesty's Secret Service was the last film on which Hunt worked in
the series.
Untitled
AV
CLUB FEATURETTE DEPARTMENT
Untitled
On Her Majesty's Secret
Service, generally dismissed in its time because of poor reaction to
commercial pitchman George Lazenby's only turn as James Bond, Peter
Hunt's spectacular and unexpectedly dramatic take on the 1963 Ian
Fleming novel has aged like fine wine and is now considered one of
the major entries in the Bond franchise. Later Bond Timothy Dalton
was considered for this one but his 007 time was yet to come. Add
On Her Majesty's Secret Service to your DVD collection.
Screenwriter
Richard Maibaum, who worked on all the Bond films bar You Only Live
Twice, was responsible for On Her Majesty's Secret Service's script.
Saltzman and Broccoli decided to drop the science fiction gadgets
from the earlier films and focus more on plot as in From Russia With
Love. Peter Hunt asked Simon Raven to write some of the dialogue
between Tracy and Blofeld in Piz Gloria, which was to be
"sharper, better and more intellectual"; one of Raven's
additions was having Tracy quoting James Elroy Flecker. When writing
the script, the producers decided to make the closest adaptation of
the book possible: virtually everything in the novel occurs in the
film and Hunt was reported to always enter the set carrying an
annotated copy of the novel.
With the script following
the novel more closely than the other film adaptations of the
eponymous source novels, there are several continuity errors due to
the film taking place in a different order, such as Blofeld not
recognising Bond, despite having met him face-to-face in the previous
film You Only Live Twice. In the original script, Bond undergoes
plastic surgery to disguise him from his enemies; the intention was
to allow an unrecognisable Bond to infiltrate Blofeld's hideout and
help the audience accept the new actor in the role. However, this was
dropped in favour of ignoring the change in actor. To make audiences
not forget it was the same James Bond, just played by another actor,
the producers inserted many references to the previous films, some as
in-jokes. These include Bond breaking the fourth wall by stating
"This never happened to the other fellow" directly to the
camera, the credits sequence with images from the previous
instalments, Bond visiting his office and finding objects from Dr.
No, From Russia with Love and Thunderball, and a caretaker whistling
the theme from Goldfinger.
Principal photography began
in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland, on October 21st 1968, with the
first scene shot being an aerial view of Bond climbing the stairs of
Blofeld's mountain retreat to meet the girls. The scenes were shot
atop the now famous revolving restaurant Piz Gloria (above), located
atop the Schilthorn near the village of Mürren. The location was
found by production manager Hubert Fröhlich after three weeks of
location scouting in France and Switzerland. The restaurant was still
under construction, but the producers found the location interesting,
and had to finance providing electricity and the aerial lift to make
filming there possible. Various chase scenes in the Alps were shot at
Lauterbrunnen and Saas-Fee, while the Christmas celebrations were
filmed in Grindelwald, and some scenes were shot on location in Bern.
Production was hampered by weak snowfall which was unfavourable to
the skiing action scenes. The producers even considered moving to
another location in Switzerland, but it was taken by the production
of Downhill Racer. The Swiss filming ended up running 56 days over
schedule. In March 1969, production moved to England, with London's
Pinewood Studios being used for interior shooting, and M's house
being shot in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. In April, the filmmakers went
to Portugal, where principal photography wrapped in May. The
pre-credit coastal and hotel scenes were filmed at Hotel Estoril
Palacio in Estoril and Guincho Beach, Cascais, while Lisbon was used
for the reunion of Bond and Tracy, and the ending employed a mountain
road in the Arrábida National Park near Setúbal. Harry
Saltzman wanted the Portuguese scenes to be in France, but after
searching there, Peter Hunt considered that not only were the
locations not photogenic, but were already "overexposed".
While
the first unit shot at Piz Gloria, the second unit, led by John
Glen, started filming the ski chases. The downhill skiing involved
professional skiers, and various camera tricks. Some cameras were
handheld, with the operators holding them as they were going downhill
with the stuntmen, and others were aerial, with cameramen Johnny
Jordan – who had previously worked in the helicopter battle of
You Only Live Twice, developing a system where he was dangled by a
parachute harness rig at 18 feet (5.5 m) height, allowing scenes to
be shot from any angle. The bobsledding chase was also filmed with
the help of Swiss Olympic athletes, and was rewritten to incorporate
the accidents the stuntmen suffered during shooting, such as the
scene where Bond falls from the sled. Blofeld getting snared with a
tree was performed at the studio by Savalas himself, after the
attempt to do this by the stuntman on location came out wrong. Glen
was also the editor of the film, employing a style similar to the one
used by Hunt in the previous Bond films, with fast motion in the
action scenes and exaggerated sound effects.
The avalanche scenes were
due to be filmed in co-operation with the Swiss army who annually
used explosions to prevent snow build-up by causing avalanches, but
the area chosen naturally avalanched just before filming. The final
result was a combination of a man-made avalanche at an isolated Swiss
location shot by the second unit, stock footage, and images created
by the special effects crew with salt. The stuntmen were filmed
later, added by optical effects. For the scene where Bond and Tracy
crash into a car race while being pursued, an ice rink was
constructed over an unused aeroplane track, with water and snow
sprayed on it constantly. Lazenby and Rigg did most of the driving
due to the high number of close-ups.
For the cinematography,
Hunt aimed for a "simple, but glamorous like the 1950s Hollywood
films I grew up with", as well as something realistic,
"where the sets don't look like sets". Cinematographer
Michael Reed added he had difficulties with lighting, as every set
built for the film had a ceiling, preventing spotlights from being
hung from above. While shooting, Hunt wanted "the most
interesting framings possible", which would also look good after
being cropped for television.
Lazenby said he experienced
difficulties during shooting, not receiving any coaching despite his
lack of acting experience, and with director Hunt never addressing
him directly, only through his assistant. Lazenby also declared that
Hunt also asked the rest of the crew to keep a distance from him, as
"Peter thought the more I was alone, the better I would be as
James Bond." Allegedly, there also were personality conflicts
with Rigg, who was already an established star. However, according to
director Hunt, these rumours are untrue and there were no such
difficulties, or else they were minor, and may have started
with Rigg joking to Lazenby before filming a love scene "Hey
George, I'm having garlic for lunch. I hope you are!" Hunt also
declared that he usually had long talks with Lazenby before and
during shooting. For instance, to shoot Tracy's death scene, Hunt
brought Lazenby to the set at 8 o'clock in the morning and made him
rehearse all day long, "and I broke him down until he was
absolutely exhausted, and by the time we shot it at five o'clock, he
was exhausted, and that's how I got the performance." Hunt said
that if Lazenby had remained in the role, he would also have directed
the successor film, Diamonds Are Forever and that his original
intentions were concluding the film with Bond and Tracy driving off
following their wedding, saving Tracy's murder for the pre-credit
sequence of Diamonds Are Forever. The idea was discarded after
Lazenby quit the role.
On Her Majesty's Secret
Service was the longest Bond film until Casino Royale was released in
2006. Despite that, two scenes were deleted from the final print:
Irma Bunt spying on Bond as he buys a wedding ring for Tracy, and a
chase over London rooftops and into the Royal Mail underground rail
system after Bond's conversation with Sir Hilary Bray is being overheard.
The
soundtrack for "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" has been
called "perhaps the best score of the series." It was
composed, arranged and conducted by John Barry; it was his fifth
successive Bond film. Barry opted to use more electrical instruments
and a more aggressive sound in the music, "I have to stick my
oar in the musical area double strong to make the audience try and
forget they don't have Sean... to be Bondian beyond Bondian."
Barry felt it would be
difficult to compose a theme song containing the title "On Her
Majesty's Secret Service" unless it were written operatically,
in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan. Leslie Bricusse had considered
lyrics for the title song but director Peter R. Hunt allowed an
instrumental title theme in the tradition of the first two Bond
films. The theme was described as "one of the best title cuts, a
wordless Moog-driven monster, suitable for skiing at breakneck speed
or dancing with equal abandon."
Barry also composed the
love song "We Have All the Time in the World", with lyrics
by Burt Bacharach's regular lyricist Hal David, sung by Louis
Armstrong. It is heard during the Bond–Tracy courtship montage,
bridging Draco's birthday party in Portugal and Bond's burglary of
the Gebrüder Gumbold law office in Bern, Switzerland. It was
Louis Armstrong's last recorded song as he died of a heart attack two
years later. Barry recalled Armstrong was very ill, but recorded the
song in one take. The song was re-released in 1994, achieving the
number three position during a 13-week spell in the UK charts. A Hal
David song entitled "Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are
Grown?" performed by Danish singer Nina also featured in the
film in several scenes.
The theme, "On Her
Majesty's Secret Service", is used in the film as an action
theme alternative to Monty Norman's "James Bond Theme", as
with Barry's previous "007" themes. "On Her Majesty's
Secret Service" was covered in 1997 by the British big beat
group, the Propellerheads for the Shaken and Stirred album. Barry
orchestrator Nic Raine recorded an arrangement of the escape from Piz
Gloria sequence and it was featured as a theme in the trailers for
the 2004 Pixar animated film The Incredibles.
On Her Majesty's Secret
Service was released on December 18th 1969 with its premiere at the
Odeon Leicester Square in London. Lazenby appeared at the premiere
with a beard, looking "very un-Bond-like", according to the
Daily Mirror. Lazenby claimed the producers had tried to persuade him
to shave it off to appear like Bond, but at that stage he had already
decided not to make another Bond film and rejected the idea. The
beard and accompanying shoulder-length hair "strained his
already fragile relationship with Saltzman and Broccoli". As On
Her Majesty's Secret Service had been filmed in stereo, the first
Bond film to use the technology, the Odeon had a new speaker system
installed to benefit the new sounds. It topped the North American box
office when it opened with a gross of $1.2 million. The film closed
its box office run with £750,000 in the United Kingdom (the
highest-grossing film of the year), $64.6 million worldwide, half of
You Only Live Twice's total gross, but still one of the
highest-grossing films of 1969. After re-releases, the total box
office was $82,000,000 worldwide.
Because Lazenby had
informed the producers that On Her Majesty's Secret Service was to be
his only outing as Bond and because of the lack of 'gadgets' used by
Bond in the film, few items of merchandise were produced for the
film, apart from the obvious soundtrack album and a film edition of
the book. Those that were produced included a number from Corgi Toys,
including Tracey's Cougar, Campbell's Volkswagen and two versions of
the bobsleigh, one with the 007 logo and one with the Piz Gloria
logo. On Her Majesty's Secret Service was nominated for only one
award: George Lazenby was nominated in the New Star of the Year –
Actor category at the 1970 Golden Globe Award ceremony, losing out
to Jon Voight.
The majority of reviews at
the time were critical of either the film, Lazenby, or both, whilst
most of the contemporary reviews in the British press referred to
George Lazenby at some point as "The Big Fry", a reference
to his previous acting in Fry's Chocolate advertisements. Derek
Malcolm of The Guardian was dismissive of Lazenby's performance,
saying that he "is not a good actor and though I never thought
Sean Connery was all that stylish either, there are moments when one
yearns for a little of his louche panache." Tom Milne, writing
in The Guardian's sister paper, The Observer was even more scathing,
saying that "I ... fervently trust (OHMSS) will be the last of
the James Bond films. All the pleasing oddities and eccentricities
and gadgets of the earlier films have somehow been lost, leaving a
routine trail through which the new James Bond strides without
noticeable signs of animation." The New York Times critic AH
Weiler also weighed in against Lazenby, saying that "Lazenby, if
not a spurious Bond, is merely a casual, pleasant, satisfactory replacement."
One of the few supporters
of Lazenby amongst the critics was Alexander Walker in the London
Evening Standard who said that "The truth is that George Lazenby
is almost as good a James Bond as the man referred to in his film as
'the other fellow'. Lazenby's voice is more suave than sexy-sinister
and he could pass for the other fellow's twin on the shady side of
the casino. Bond is now definitely all set for the Seventies."
Critical response to On Her
Majesty's Secret Service still remains sharply divided with some
saying it is by far the best entry of the series and others
suggesting that it would have been the best if it had been Connery in
the leading role instead of Lazenby. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
has been described as "the most serious", "the most
cynical" and "the most tragic" of the Bond films and
has became a fan favourite thanks to it's success in the home
video/DVD market.
In
1967, after five James Bond films, Sean Connery retired from the
role of James Bond and during the filming of You Only Live Twice was
not on speaking terms with Albert Broccoli. The confirmed front
runners for the new 007 were Englishman John Richardson, Dutchman
Hans De Vries, American Robert Campbell, Englishman Anthony Rogers
and Australian George Lazenby. Pictured at right is a composite image
of the five top candidates doing their best "James Bond
pose" that was originally published in the October 11th, 1968,
issue of LIFE magazine.
Although
Lazenby had been offered a contract for seven movies, his agent,
Ronan O'Rahilly, convinced him that the secret agent would be archaic
in the liberated 1970s, and as a result he left the series after the
release of On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969. Lazenby announced
that he no longer wished to play the role of James Bond due to his
conflict with the film's producers, about whom he said, "They
made me feel like I was mindless. They disregarded everything I
suggested simply because I hadn't been in the film business like them
for about a thousand years." His co-star Diana Rigg was among
many who commented on this decision: "The role made Sean Connery
a millionaire. I truly don't know what's happening in George's mind
so I can only speak of my reaction. I think it's a pretty foolish
move. I think if he can bear to do an apprenticeship, which everybody
in this business has to do, then he should do it quietly and with
humility. Everybody has to do it. There are few instant successes in
the film business. And the instant successes one usually associates
with somebody who is willing to learn anyway." Lazenby grew a
beard and long hair. "Bond is a brute," he announced.
"I've already put him behind me. I will never play him
again." Later Lazenby began to study drama at Durham
University's College of the Venerable Bede but would play Bond
several times over the years in numerous parodies and unofficial 007
roles, most notably the 1983 television movie The Return of the Man
from U.N.C.L.E. and an episode of The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents,
entitled "Diamonds Aren't Forever". In 2012 Lazenby made a
guest appearance on the Canadian sketch comedy series This Hour Has
22 Minutes, spoofing the 007 series in a skit called Help, I've
Skyfallen and I Can't Get Up. Although Eon Productions attempted on
several occasions to cast Americans as Bond (most notably signing
John Gavin for Diamonds Are Forever before the services of Sean
Connery were obtained, again) Lazenby remains the only actor from
outside the British Isles to portray Bond in a Bond feature film.
Screenwriter
Richard Maibaum, who worked on all the Bond films bar You Only Live
Twice, was responsible for On Her Majesty's Secret Service's script.
Saltzman and Broccoli decided to drop the science fiction gadgets
from the earlier films and focus more on plot as in From Russia With
Love. Peter Hunt asked Simon Raven to write some of the dialogue
between Tracy and Blofeld in Piz Gloria, which was to be
"sharper, better and more intellectual"; one of Raven's
additions was having Tracy quoting James Elroy Flecker. When writing
the script, the producers decided to make the closest adaptation of
the book possible: virtually everything in the novel occurs in the
film and Hunt was reported to always enter the set carrying an
annotated copy of the novel.
While
the first unit shot at Piz Gloria, the second unit, led by John
Glen, started filming the ski chases. The downhill skiing involved
professional skiers, and various camera tricks. Some cameras were
handheld, with the operators holding them as they were going downhill
with the stuntmen, and others were aerial, with cameramen Johnny
Jordan – who had previously worked in the helicopter battle of
You Only Live Twice, developing a system where he was dangled by a
parachute harness rig at 18 feet (5.5 m) height, allowing scenes to
be shot from any angle. The bobsledding chase was also filmed with
the help of Swiss Olympic athletes, and was rewritten to incorporate
the accidents the stuntmen suffered during shooting, such as the
scene where Bond falls from the sled. Blofeld getting snared with a
tree was performed at the studio by Savalas himself, after the
attempt to do this by the stuntman on location came out wrong. Glen
was also the editor of the film, employing a style similar to the one
used by Hunt in the previous Bond films, with fast motion in the
action scenes and exaggerated sound effects.
started
with Rigg joking to Lazenby before filming a love scene "Hey
George, I'm having garlic for lunch. I hope you are!" Hunt also
declared that he usually had long talks with Lazenby before and
during shooting. For instance, to shoot Tracy's death scene, Hunt
brought Lazenby to the set at 8 o'clock in the morning and made him
rehearse all day long, "and I broke him down until he was
absolutely exhausted, and by the time we shot it at five o'clock, he
was exhausted, and that's how I got the performance." Hunt said
that if Lazenby had remained in the role, he would also have directed
the successor film, Diamonds Are Forever and that his original
intentions were concluding the film with Bond and Tracy driving off
following their wedding, saving Tracy's murder for the pre-credit
sequence of Diamonds Are Forever. The idea was discarded after
Lazenby quit the role.
The
soundtrack for "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" has been
called "perhaps the best score of the series." It was
composed, arranged and conducted by John Barry; it was his fifth
successive Bond film. Barry opted to use more electrical instruments
and a more aggressive sound in the music, "I have to stick my
oar in the musical area double strong to make the audience try and
forget they don't have Sean... to be Bondian beyond Bondian."
